ARTICLES ABOUT IBIS BY DATE - PAGE 2

I read with interest Wednesday's letter, "Roosting ibis put on quite a show." The letter writer mentions "uncaring young men roaring around our lake in Wave Runners and even those loud airboats that are meant for the Everglades. They circle around and around the lake and pass right under the two trees in which the birds are trying to roost." Several questions immediately came to mind. One, who made it their -- "our" -- lake? All connected waterways belong to the state of Florida and the people of Florida.

I was very interested in the Oct. 31 article, "New signs make sure trees are for birds." Although the article is about Pembroke Pines, we have almost the identical situation right here in Delray Beach. Along the canal-fed Lake Delray (behind the Lake Delray Apartments on Lindell Boulevard), there are two huge ficus trees where ibis try to roost every evening at dusk. There are hundreds and hundreds of ibis there and they are quite a show. We are a quiet senior development consisting of four buildings around the lake.

The man credited with creating and wearing UM's original Sebastian the Ibis mascot costume has died. John Stormont, 65, a UM graduate who served two terms on the Monroe County Commission, died Sunday in Tavernier. Originally from Pennsylvania, Stormont and fellow students living in San Sebastian residence hall came up with the idea for the ibis as an entry in the 1957 homecoming celebration. The following year, Stormont, who earned his degree in motion picture production and journalism, wore the costume, which had a longer, more ibis-like beak than the current model, at football games.

When you put 40 years into professional tennis as a player and coach, you're going to collect some friends and this weekend at the Ibis Country Club in West Palm Beach more than a few of Tom Gullikson's buddies will join him at the fourth annual Swingtime golf and tennis charity event to benefit brain cancer research. Gullikson is bringing in Jim Courier, Andy Roddick, Todd Martin, Aaron Krickstein, Vince Spadea, Chanda Rubin, Kathy Rinaldi, Stan Smith, Carling Bassett Seguso, MaliVai Washington, Amanda Coetzer, Jenny Hopkins and Mary Joe Fernandez.

CORAL GABLES The University of Miami tonight willhonor its men's basketball team for its record-breaking season, which culminated in UM's first NCAA "Sweet Sixteen" tournament appearance. The celebration, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. at the Knight Sports Complex on UM's Coral Gables campus. The event will include appearances by the players, Coach Leonard Hamilton, cheerleaders, Sunsation dancers, the Band of the Hour marching band and Sebastian the Ibis. Commemorative T-shirts will be distributed to the first 500 guests.

Keiko Ibi's acceptance speech at this year's Academy Awards will undoubtedly go down in Oscar-night history as front-runner in the "most adorable" category. Ibi, a 32-year-old New York University graduate student understandably overwhelmed by her victory in the documentary short subject category for The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years, exploded into grateful tears on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, radiating pure joy and wonder. Somehow, a young Japanese woman and a group of Jewish senior citizens from Manhattan's Lower East Side had been the most winning of combinations.

Florida Atlantic University became the youngest Division I athletic program in the nation to receive full certification from the NCAA. The action followed a comprehensive, year-long self-study by the university and peer-review team campus visit. FAU moved from Division II to Division I in 1993. The NCAA introduced the certification process to encourage Division I schools to subject all aspects of their athletics programs to critical scrutiny, particularly with regard to academic and financial integrity, rules compliance and commitment to gender equity.

With a three-year commitment from Jack Nicklaus' Golden Bear International to float the event but no title sponsor to assure its long-term survival, the LPGA announced the creation of a tournament starting in 1997 at Ibis Golf and Country Club. The 72-hole event will debut in late January or early February 1997 and feature a pro-am format similar to the PGA Tour's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. The inaugural purse will be $600,000. Usually, new events are not launched without backing from a title sponsor, but outgoing LPGA Commissioner Charles Mechem is hopeful one will be found soon.

ON THE HIGH TIDE WE MOTOR UP THE Lopez River, through Sunday Bay and on past House Hammock. In every direction the scenery is of dense green mangroves, gnarled buttonwood and water. No other boaters pass this way. There is no human presence save our own. A great blue heron, untrusting, takes flight before the sound of the outboard. Packs of white ibis, what the locals call curlew, flutter behind him like confetti trailing a dark-coated groom. "Yonder is Knife Bar, where I lost my pocketknife in 1930," says the man at the helm.

Two more birds have been added to Florida`s list of species of special concern because of dwindling numbers: the white ibis, an Everglades wading bird, and the black skimmer, a marine bird that nests on sandy beaches. No one objected to the July 31 decision to list the skimmer as a potentially threatened species. But when the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission`s governing board took the same action for the white ibis Florida`s most common wading bird, a long line of people stood up to protest.